The Slippery Issue of Palm Oil

Forget the adage that you never more than 6ft away from a rat. In all likelihood, you are never more than 6ft away from palm oil in some shape or form, which may in fact be a scarier thought than those rodent residents. Palm oil is the most popular edible oil in the world. Check the back of the nearest packet of biscuits, your tube of shampoo or your daily makeup and in all likelihood you’ll see it there - PKO or Palm Kernel Oil. It may even sneak in under disguise, with around 500 different processed forms, or ‘derivatives’, that make up about 60% of global palm oil use.

Derived from the pulp of the oil palm fruit, the oil has a longer shelf life than other vegetable oils and is comparatively cheap to produce. However, food is by no means the only use for the ~70 million tonnes produced each year which is expected to reach 240 million tonnes by 2050. The uniquely adaptable properties of the oil lead to its ubiquity – it can increase the crunch of your favourite oily snacks as well as make your lipstick silkier and shaving foam bubblier. Today, 3 billion people in 150 countries use products containing palm oil, each consuming upwards of 8kg per year.

Oil palm is predominantly grown in the world’s poorest regions; currently concentrated in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it has had beneficial social impacts with increased wealth, education and services. Plantations have a life cycle of 75 years, and so with such long-term interest companies are inclined to invest more readily into the local infrastructure for the benefit of crop productivity. Often, local smallholders are also able to extract these benefits, as in many regions over 40% of oil palm is produced within smallholdings.

However, the costs and benefits of oil palm are closely intertwined, and often hard to fully distinguish. As the most efficient oil crop, oil palm is 4-10 times more oil-yielding than other vegetable oils for the same inputs, and although a more water intensive it is still considered a land-saving crop due to its land efficiency. Alternative oils such as soybean or rape seed in fact require more land and so may be more damaging, yet oil palm’s popularity encourages vast plantations as industries and communities buy into its appeal. Palm biodiesel is also popular in a handful of the producing nations, though the deforestation and land clearance associated with plantations means it is in fact a worse performer than fossil fuels in terms of greenhouse gas production.

Western consumption exceeds that of the producing nations’, and the production of soy, beef and palm oil are the cause of 80% of tropical deforestation worldwide, so we have a responsibility to ensure the sustainability of oil palm as an ecosystem service and global commodity. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) serves to promote informed and more ethical choices and not simply drive people towards alternative damaging crops. Currently only 18% is certified by the RSPO, and only 50% of that is sold as such, as the consumer drive for this has not yet developed.

The financial incentives for improving the industry and certification itself is still currently lacking, with just a 1% premium for RSPO palm oil. Progress is nevertheless being made including via EU policy (EU Regulation 1169/2011), the main law relating to food labelling in the European Union which came into force in 2015. This ended the practice of disguising oils within a generic ‘vegetable oil’ term within ingredient lists of food products. Other certifications are also being set up, including independent country schemes that are more beneficial to smallholders and less prone to control imposed by an external certification.

The RSPO is itself not perfect, and has been criticised as being an oil cartel; inclined towards larger mills and bypassing smallholders while continuing deforestation. Juggling the continued use of palm oil with attempts to preserve tropical forests is proving very difficult, with research showing that ‘sustainable’ palm oil can even cause more deforestation. There is a risk that in these regulation attempts neglect the innate value of tropical forests and the ecosystem services they provide, independent of crop production. Alternative solutions proposed include utilising local oils, cutting unnecessary oil usage such as in cheap snack foods, and bans on palm oil importations.

Further legislation is also attempting to solve some of these issues, with the European Commission introducing a legislative initiative on due diligence that companies must undertake with mandatory deforestation. This could result in wide-ranging changes, with each part of the supply chain held accountable. To make a real impact, third party certification could also develop and enable these more responsible systems.

This is a start to a path that will hopefully lead to more sustainable palm oil and greater accountability for industries involved. As it remains an attractive crop, new issues are developing as it spreads within uncultivated regions of Africa, where irresponsible planting has the potential for large scale detrimental impacts. But our knowledge of the existing impacts and benefits from oil palm elsewhere has helped inform a more cautious approach, including organisations set up to monitor the responsible implementation of palm oil in Africa.

Although Palm Oil remains within a grey area regarding sustainability and ecological cost and benefit, the wide-ranging uses and economic benefits means that it will only increase in dominance on the global crop market. We must only hope that the costs do not exceed the gains.